V6 Power Stealth Mode Engaged

The mount kit we use in the V6 powered EK is the EKJ2 mounts. They have dual mounting heights. Originally when I installed the engine, a J32A Type S motor, it was at the lower position. It was fun driving it around town in Phoenix, the car was quick but looked like almost any other EK hatch with too many stickers. I got to surprise a lot of BMWs, Mustangs and big ass 4X4 trucks with it. I think the only clue they had that something was up was the sound of the exhaust as I pulled away. That car did not sound like a typical four cylinder Honda. It had a deep almost angry sound to it, very cool.

In July, when we took the car in the Super Street Honda FF Battle we flipped the mounts and reinstalled the engine at the higher mount position. We raised it up to keep from dragging the oil pan on the gator bumps and curbing at Auto Club Speedway.  A also had to cut a hole in the hood for manifold clearance. No more stealth mode. It was kind of cool to drive it around like that. It reminded me of driving in my friends 55 Chevy back in the day with the dual quad carbs on an Edelbrock "high-rise" manifold sticking out of the hood.


Recently I was updating the front end of the Civic to use with the ExoSpeed wide front end. It's designed for the 99-00 Civic headlamps and hood.  While I was changing parts I bolted on a TL Base Model intake manifold onto the J32A. I wanted to be able to close the hood again and the TL Base model manifold is shorter.

Here's a picture of the two manifolds; the TL Base model manifold is on top and and it's about 1.4 inches shorter than the TL Type S manifold shown on bottom.


Here is a picture of the TL Type S manifold on the engine in the car.

For reference the same shot with the TL Base manifold bolted on the engine. The difference is significant.

I mounted the new hood and the hood wouldn't quite close so I trimmed some of the hood skeleton.

After trimming the hood I slapped it back on the car and the hood closed with room to spare. If I get a hold of some of the other manifolds I will check these for clearance as well.

I need to get back to the dyno and see if this causes a bog lose of horsepower, but for now, stealth mode has been re-engaged.

-BrianAtHasport

Thank You Skunk2

I have a land speed race car. A couple of years ago Tim Kelly from Xact Dyno and I went to the Bonneville Salt Flats to set a land speed record. There are a hundred different classes, the one I compete in is G/GT. The G before the slash is for 1.51 liter to 2.0 liter engine and the GT stands for 2 seat production car with stock exterior. The class divisions are a little more complicated than that, but that's my class rules in a nutshell. There's more information on how the classes break down on the Southern California Timing Association and Bonneville Nationals Inc website if you're curious. 

The existing G/GT record I was running against is 157.805MPH, and was set over 20 years ago by a 1987 Ford EXP. The Ford EXP was a brick so I figured this record was ripe for the picking and I had the perfect combo, A K20Z3 and an Insight. The best 2.0 production motor made in the most aerodynamic 2 seater in production. This wasn't the first time a Honda tried to break that record, In 2002 Car and Driver Magazine made n attempt in a modified S2000. There is an interesting article on the Car and Driver website chronicling their assault on the record. This wasn't my first time either. A year earlier I seized a modified K20A2 engine at around 130MPH. I say seized, but actually only one piston seized. Kinda of funny, it felt like I had hit a really strong headwind. Upon inspection of the engine it appeared the no. 1 piston seized and the crank pulled the wrist pin out the bottom of the piston and then pounded it into shrapnel. This story probably deserves it's own post.

This year would be different though. Tim had tuned the car with some long pulls to simulate what the engine would go through. Bonneville it tough on engines. We broke the record by .064 MPH. I had expected better honestly. I mean I had an Insight with a K20?!?  Thats when I found out the car that held the record had over 400 HP. It was powered by powered by an exotic DOHC "Ford" engine sourced from a race car in England. The Insight only had 200 HP. OK, not so bad after all. 


Here's a video of the record breaking run. It looks boring on video, but driving the car is unnerving. You don't steer a car at that speed on the  salt, you just make suggestions. When the car feels like it, it starts heading in the direction you want. I'm not particularly worried about spinning at high speed, but I do worry about rolling. That would suck.

I'm going back this year to bump the record up a little, but I needed more horsepower. I called my good friends at Skunk2 and talked to Dr. Charles and Aaron Bonk to see what they could do. They were nice enough to suggest some parts to help the stock K20Z3 breath a little better. The first parts I installed were some Skunk2 stage 2 cams, valves and valve springs. A trip back to the dyno revealed a solid gain of almost 20 HP. Sweet. I was still waiting to install two other parts though, the new 06 Civic intake manifold and a 74mm throttlebody. 


We finally had a some time and installed the manifold and throttlebody  a couple of weeks ago. The parts had to be modified a little, the 06 Civic manifold is made for the drive by wire t-body which has a slightly different bolt pattern. Once modified and installed the car went back to Xact Dyno for some Tim-tuning. Here are the results. Click on the image for a larger picture.

The dyno shows three plots, 1) the baseline before modifications, 2) after the cams, valves and springs and 3) after the intake manifold and throttlebody.  The intake and throttlebody netted another 22 horsepower. Whoa, impressive. I was expecting about 10 HP. Granted the actual number has probably  been effected by the weather. By Arizona standards it was cold last week. But seriously, the software is supposed to compensate for that and I've never seen the weather effect one of our cars by more than 4 or 5 horsepower. Well, we'll know better this spring; when the weather gets warm again I'll retest to check the gains. 


But whatever the results, thank you Skunk2. 175 MPH, here I come!